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4 Lighting Tips for Photographing Glass
In still life photography, photographing glass objects is a technicality. You have to showcase their airy textures and vibrant colors, with sharp contours, while also controlling surface reflections.
To achieve the above goals, you must be able to choose different backgrounds, and take the corresponding lighting scheme according to the background， Glass product .
What I want to share with you today, shared by a professional still life photographer, is the lighting method for glassware shooting in 5 different backgrounds, which will definitely help you!
1. Solid light background
The characteristic of light-colored background is that it has strong reflective ability.
You can hit the direct light from the front (be careful not to hit the glass directly), the direct light will reflect on the white background and illuminate the glass, and the cup will appear very transparent;
If you can use a transparent plexiglass still life stage, you can also fill in the light behind the object, which will make the outline under the cup more obvious.
Of course, if you have the conditions to use a background light board, or use a backlight light source for shooting, you can avoid the frontal light step, but the rear fill light step is still indispensable.
Because, without the rear fill light, the contour line under the cup body is not obvious enough:
2. Solid color dark background
A dark background is characterized by almost no reflection of light.
So, you need to light from the sides with a flash softbox, or light on the top, and place reflectors on the sides to outline the top and sides in white.
However, you may need to adjust the angle and orientation of the light source several times to control the amount of white fringing to get the best shot.
3. Gradient background with light in the middle and dark around
The gradient background effect, which is bright in the middle and dark around, is similar to the light background of solid color in terms of lighting method. It is a front main light source, plus an auxiliary light source in the lower and rear directions.
The difference is that a solid light background needs a front scattered light source, while a gradient background needs a cluster light source, and the background is further away from the subject to create a central bright area.
By adjusting the distance from the front main light to the background, you can change the brightness and "diffusion" range of the central highlight area, and control the size of the gradient area to achieve the desired shooting effect.
Still pay attention to that problem, any light source coming from the front should not hit the glass directly, otherwise there will be strong reflections.
"Wait, Lao Shi, how did you take this picture? The central bright area on the picture is behind the cup, which means that the light is shining directly on the cup, but why is there no reflection?"
Undoubtedly, the frontal light will definitely have reflections on the glass. Since there is no reflection in this picture, there is only one truth: the light is coming from the back.
So, the picture above was taken in a still life box, and the identification is complete!
4. Staggered Color Background
One of the most important techniques in glassware photography is adding liquids. The glassware itself is colorless and transparent, adding liquids of various colors can make the picture more colorful;
In addition, different liquid textures, such as clear water, cloudy beer, juice with a lot of suspended particles, can create a completely different atmosphere, you can try more.
And the interlaced color background lighting method we are going to talk about next, you need to use the aid of liquid.
The specific method is to select a black non-reflective bottom plate and place two background papers of different colors farther away from the object, splicing them together, centering the spliced gap, and lighting it with lights; Light, shot from the front.
The part of the cup body containing the liquid has the effect of blocking the line of sight, covering the seam between the two background plates; in addition, the liquid is also "dyed" with different colors by the background plate, and the visual effect is quite strange.
To achieve the above goals, you must be able to choose different backgrounds, and take the corresponding lighting scheme according to the background， Glass product .
What I want to share with you today, shared by a professional still life photographer, is the lighting method for glassware shooting in 5 different backgrounds, which will definitely help you!
1. Solid light background
The characteristic of light-colored background is that it has strong reflective ability.
You can hit the direct light from the front (be careful not to hit the glass directly), the direct light will reflect on the white background and illuminate the glass, and the cup will appear very transparent;
If you can use a transparent plexiglass still life stage, you can also fill in the light behind the object, which will make the outline under the cup more obvious.
Of course, if you have the conditions to use a background light board, or use a backlight light source for shooting, you can avoid the frontal light step, but the rear fill light step is still indispensable.
Because, without the rear fill light, the contour line under the cup body is not obvious enough:
2. Solid color dark background
A dark background is characterized by almost no reflection of light.
So, you need to light from the sides with a flash softbox, or light on the top, and place reflectors on the sides to outline the top and sides in white.
However, you may need to adjust the angle and orientation of the light source several times to control the amount of white fringing to get the best shot.
3. Gradient background with light in the middle and dark around
The gradient background effect, which is bright in the middle and dark around, is similar to the light background of solid color in terms of lighting method. It is a front main light source, plus an auxiliary light source in the lower and rear directions.
The difference is that a solid light background needs a front scattered light source, while a gradient background needs a cluster light source, and the background is further away from the subject to create a central bright area.
By adjusting the distance from the front main light to the background, you can change the brightness and "diffusion" range of the central highlight area, and control the size of the gradient area to achieve the desired shooting effect.
Still pay attention to that problem, any light source coming from the front should not hit the glass directly, otherwise there will be strong reflections.
"Wait, Lao Shi, how did you take this picture? The central bright area on the picture is behind the cup, which means that the light is shining directly on the cup, but why is there no reflection?"
Undoubtedly, the frontal light will definitely have reflections on the glass. Since there is no reflection in this picture, there is only one truth: the light is coming from the back.
So, the picture above was taken in a still life box, and the identification is complete!
4. Staggered Color Background
One of the most important techniques in glassware photography is adding liquids. The glassware itself is colorless and transparent, adding liquids of various colors can make the picture more colorful;
In addition, different liquid textures, such as clear water, cloudy beer, juice with a lot of suspended particles, can create a completely different atmosphere, you can try more.
And the interlaced color background lighting method we are going to talk about next, you need to use the aid of liquid.
The specific method is to select a black non-reflective bottom plate and place two background papers of different colors farther away from the object, splicing them together, centering the spliced gap, and lighting it with lights; Light, shot from the front.
The part of the cup body containing the liquid has the effect of blocking the line of sight, covering the seam between the two background plates; in addition, the liquid is also "dyed" with different colors by the background plate, and the visual effect is quite strange.
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